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Friday, February 8, 2013

A brain for numbers that never, ever stops.
A hunger to have a normal senior year.
A set of digits on television that shouldn't be there...

And now Farrah goes from understated jeans to completely undercover as the FBI realizes that her OCD about numbers and patterns is their best bet for catching an ecoterrorist whose been sending others out to do his dirty work for years.

My Recommendation: To get away from the kids who nicknamed her “Digit” for her
math abilities, Farrah transfers to another high school for her senior year. But
it’ll take the FBI to keep her safe from the terrorist group that she
accidentally exposes. Faking her own kidnapping wasn’t quite the way she’d
planned to stay unnoticed at her new school…

Farrah wishes that she didn’t see patterns in everything and
has had to learn extreme coping strategies to blunt her obsessive-compulsive tendencies
when real life is uneven and disorganized. Her math professor dad says she can
put her “gift” to work later in life and urges her to enjoy being a teen for
now. Wish it were that easy…

Numbers pop up on television when they shouldn’t be there, but
the station says she’s imagining them. Her genius skills crack the code,
pointing to a terror attack at JFK Airport, but her report to the FBI is
ignored…until it happens.

Now a ruthless band of ecoterrorists is gunning for Digit,
so she has to fake being kidnapped and go undercover to help the FBI break the rest
of the code to prevent more attacks and catch the terrorists. Nice to really be
appreciated for her skills, even nicer to be undercover with cute young FBI
agent John as they race to interpret more clues.

But somehow, the bad guys find one of the safe houses, John
and Digit have to go into deep cover without contacting anyone, and the stakes
in this math puzzle get deadly in a hurry.

How fast can they unravel the last parts of this puzzle?

What will the ecoterrorists’ next move be?

Will Digit’s “kidnapping” have an unhappy ending?

(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

She got her plane ticket home as soon as she could, leaving the sweet children at the Haitian orphanage where she volunteered. But there was no way for Radley to know that her parents would not be at the airport waiting for her and that everything she knew as safe would be gone.

Listen to the first chapter of Safekeepinghere, then grab the book at your local library or independent bookstore
so you can consider each of each black-and-white photograph as you worry through Celia, Radley, and Jerry Lee's desperate journey away from despair and danger.

What would you do to survive if you were in Radley's mud-soaked shoes?
**kmm

My Recommendation: When the president is assassinated, Radley rushes home from volunteering
at a Haitian orphanage, but everything is going wrong. Her parents should be waiting
for her at the airport, but they’re not. No one answers the phone at home, her
credit cards no longer work, her cellphone is dead, and US marshals are
everywhere.

New curfews and travel restrictions mean that the teen must
walk for days to cover the hour’s drive home, avoiding checkpoints and
scavenging food where she can find it. Arriving at her empty house, Radley passes
dark stains on the pavement and hides in a secret attic room as police pound on
the door in the morning, over and over.

No electricity, no food left, only mom’s photos escaped the
looting. She can’t stay here, she’s got to get away – from the marshals, from
the uncertainty about her parents’ whereabouts, from the totalitarian state
that New Hampshire has become.

So she heads north to Canada, traveling by night, avoiding other people and
their potential dangers, staying clear of the small towns swarming with
soldiers, until a big dog comes to her and begs that she follow him. Radley
finds Celia ill and feverish, nurses her until the trio can continue plodding
north through the rainy woods.

A small, safe place – that’s all they need – somewhere away
from the soldiers and curfews and guns.

Can Radley, Celia, and Jerry Lee actually make it to Canada?

Where are their parents, their neighbors, their friends?

Will they ever be able to go home, or will martial law grip
the US forever?

Karen Hesse’s own black-and-white photographs of the places
where the girls and dog travel fill this book with darkness and light, as the
cadence of her words measures the steps and steps and steps that Radley takes
on this long journey. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

England and India are so different,
Not even the green of the trees is the same,
But whispers and rumors are too close in both lands.

The objections to British rule over India have moved from prayers to violent demonstrations in 1910, especially following Lord Curzon's partition of the country to split off Muslim-majority Bengal.

This first book in the At Somerton series will appeal to both fans of Downton Abbey and lovers of historical fiction with its upstairs-downstairs intrigues and political unrest abroad in the time just preceding "The Great War" which we call World War I.

What's ahead for the Averley sisters and the others At Somerton as 1911 dawns?
**kmm

My Recommendation: High society and propriety will encircle Ava’s life in 1910 once
the ship reaches England, but an accidental (and unchaperoned) meeting on deck
leaves her breathless, hopeful, and confused. People would be shocked if they discovered
that she’d kissed a man before her debutante season, utterly appalled if they found
out he was Indian!

How dreadful for her father to leave India under a cloud of
suspicion after his distinguished career there! Now they are returning to their
family estate with her sister Georgiana so that he can marry a wealthy and
beautiful widow to keep it afloat for now. The suddenness of the wedding and so
many guests descending on quiet Somerton has the servants running to and fro,
especially housekeeper Mrs. Cliffe whose daughter is now a housemaid.

Suddenly, Lady Ava and Lady Georgiana will have brothers and
another sister (so jealous of everyone), plus a fashionable stepmother who will
steer Ava through the intricacies of the London Season to find a husband. Never
mind that Ava wants to attend Oxford, wants to think for herself, wants to
think at all! And Ravi is at Oxford, might even visit London…

When Rose Cliffe is promoted to ladies’ maid for Ava and
Georgiana, she’s sad that her evenings at the piano in the friendly servants’
sitting room are over. Music just flows through her veins, but a country girl
like her could never afford piano lessons. The ladies’ maid to the new Lady
Westlake hints strongly that learning secrets is the best way to get ahead in
this world. The clandestine letters between Ravi and Ava, hinting of violence
against the British in India, go through Rose’s hands…

Is there any hope for Ravi and Ava to be together?

What other secrets glide through Somerton’s elegant halls?

Must Ava marry someone, just to keep the estate intact?

As upstairs murmurs and belowstairs whispers collide, more
stories At Somerton will follow this debut tale of keeping up appearances,
societal expectations, and scandalously delicious secrets. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Welcome to the tradition-filled halls of Monroe Prep, Dad's alma mater, where Mallory's reputation precedes her - the knife, Brian's blood on her kitchen floor, the self-defense verdict.

Are her nightmares just reaction to the trauma or something more sinister? Surely Reid believes that Brian's mom's car was parked outside the school gates, that someone keeps entering her room, that she's not seeing things - they've known each other since they were kids because their dads were high school roommates up here.

The crazy things happening now at Monroe cannot just be Mallory's imagination... can they?

My Recommendation: The blood, the knife, the holes in her memory – Mallory knows
she should be glad for the “self-defense” ruling, but the pulsating hum in her
brain won’t stop. Neither will the nightmares or Brian’s mom stalking her,
asking where her dead son is.

Maybe boarding school in the New Hampshire woods will be
far enough from her seaside house where Brian died in a pool of his own
bright-red blood. Dad pulled strings to get her admitted to his alma mater at
the last minute; he couldn’t stop the rumors about Mallory from getting there
first.

Being a new student at Monroe Prep is worse than being at
a regular high school since the snooty rich kids have known each other forever.
Well, Reid is nice to her, probably because their dads were roommates here and
their families got together often over the years. Last time she saw him was his
dad’s funeral, not a good memory on lots of levels.

Despite her sleeping pills, Mallory still has nightmares,
hears the booming echoes of Brian’s heart, wakes up with a handprint-shaped
bruise on her shoulder that she couldn’t have done to herself, window unlocked
when she knows she locked it. No cellphone service in these mountains, so she
can never get through to her best friend Colleen at home, the only person who understands
what she’s enduring.

A green car glimpsed through the fog - is Brian's mother
stalking her again?

A red handprint on her door, vandalism in her dorm room, menacing
whispers – is her presence threatening someone at Monroe?

A hidden ruin in the woods, tribute to a lost student – is
she supposed to be next?

Once again Megan Miranda crafts a chilling story of the
hazy boundary between death and life in this psychological thriller with traces
of the paranormal. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.